Twitter For Small Business Marketing
Everyone has heard of Twitter, but is every small business owner using it and should they be? Here is my guide for the use of Twitter for small business owners, based on both my own and many of my clients’ experiences.
1. You Must Protect Your Name
I do not believe that Twitter is the most important or powerful marketing activity for your small business, but I absolutely do believe that you must have a Twitter account and protect your business name. For example, you can find me on www.twitter.com/businesssalt. Whatever the name of your business, you should set up an account and protect that name now so that your competitors cannot benefit from it (much like the early ‘gold rush’ days of domain names).
2. Automate Your Tweets
If you are doing good small business marketing, you will be adding new content to your website. If you are using the tool I recommend to notify everyone on your email list each time you add good, relevant and useful content to your website, namely AWeber, then it is really simple to link your Twitter account to AWeber. That way, each and every time you post a new article it can automatically tweet this for you too (using the subject line and the link created by AWeber). Now it is better to post the link yourself to your own website, but my motto is ‘Perfection Kills Momentum’, so as AWeber makes it so much easier for you to do this, use it. Don’t sweat the small stuff as Dolly Parton says in “Better Get To Living” – wise words from a very astute business woman!
3. View What Your Competitors Are Doing
Take a look at your competitors tweets and even follow them so you can see what they are doing and saying. If they appear to be much busier than you, ask yourself whether it is good busy or silly busy? I see many people spending countless hours on Twitter yet when you visit their website there are only five static pages (see point 4 below for more on this). Twitter should not be your be all and end all. If you are spending all of your time tweeting yet your website has no useful information for which your potential clients can find you and be convinced of your expertise, you are wasting your time.
4. The Only Real Use For Twitter For Small Business Owners
In my opinion the only real purpose of Twitter and Facebook is to generate clicks through to your website where people can then download your free guides and contact you about your services.
Summary
Twitter has come into its own for celebrity watching. I do not think it is the small business marketing tool that some say it is. Follow the rules above and you can have a good Twitter presence without missing some real small business marketing opportunities in the process.